by TylerRose.
“You really do feel the dead, don’t you,” a man said.
She looked up to see a man older than his physical appearance. His appearance was a man about sixty five or so; but she sensed something a couple thousand years old inside the skin shell.
“Tyler, this is my father Earnol. He is the Administrator of the Celestial Congress, head Guardian of the Flow of Time, and President of the Council of the Congress.”
A lot of titles for one man, she kept to herself as he sat on her left.
“I understand that you are reluctant to leave Earth and its familiar things,” he began gently enough. “But you cannot say you are unaccustomed to new surroundings. Know that you are welcome to come whenever you decide.”
“Open invitation, huh?” she asked, seeing the barred off square in front of them.
“The others all took their time to decide. In the end, the excitement of living and working on planets in other parts of the galaxy won out over the same old boring planet Earth. Eventually, you will find the planet boring. When you are ready, I will have work for you.”
He vanished.
She stood and went to that square, read the sign telling of various nobles who had been executed on that spot. Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, two wives of Henry the Eighth. Margaret Pole, the Countess of Salisbury and mother of Reginald Pole of the same time period. What an interesting place to stop walking, on a spot known for the deaths to have happened there.
She found herself remarkably calm, and turned to Julian. He looked up to her there, his face barely readable but looking something like regret.
**** **** ****
On the subject of parallel timelines and crossover moments. There comes a point when an event’s outcome is so vastly different that the two timelines can never merge again. They become two distinct timelines.
In one, the same in which she’d reacted badly to Jerome’s energy, her resolve broke down and she reached for Julian’s hand.
“Okay. I’ll live on the station.”
In this one…
“I’m tired. I’m going home to bed. I’ll talk to you when I talk to you. Thank you for breakfast.”
She teleported directly to her apartment. Stripped and into a hot shower to scrub the smell of death off her, she tried to cleanse her mind at the same time. To no avail. The chaos was quieted but not gone. Never gone, as though the dead continued to try to speak to her. At last in bed, she needed a long time for her mind to still enough for sleep.
Chapter Seven
Tyler spent Christmasat Gramma Addie’s. Her cousin Zarabeth wouldn’t shut up about her upcoming wedding. How huge the pink and gold dress was, how heavy it was going to be.
“I’ll probably have scars on my hips for years,” she gloated to the envious younger cousins.
No patience for any of it, Tyler spent a lot of time outside walking along the creek, sitting alone in the ruined indigo processing barn, or up a tree while the family was there. Addie didn’t see much of her favorite grandchild from the 24th to the 26th.
“She’s just playing up the drama of her life,” Zarabeth declared at one point. “She’s never happy. Poor pity me Tyler as always.”
Addie slapped Zarabeth, an action to catch everyone’s attention, since Addie had never struck any of her grandchildren before. No one said a word, however. Zarabeth was out of line and they all knew it.
“When you’ve the weight of the universe on your shoulders, you will have something to say about Tyler’s mood. Go to your bed, you stupid little girl, and don’t come out until you’re called for.”
Zarabeth ran the length of the house and out the front door to her father’s trailer to sulk.
“Radames, go climb a tree. The rest of you leave Tyler be,” Adelaide told the aunts and uncles who were in the kitchen.
If there was one person to whom the troubled granddaughter would talk, it was her Uncle Radames. He had always had a particular connection with the niece who had always been the odd one out.
“Can I come up too?”
Tyler looked down to see him looking up.
“I come bearing wine,” he held up a metal pitcher and two goblets upside down by the feet.
“So long as you don’t talk about weddings.”
He started the climb and was on the same limb within a few seconds.
“That’s women talk anyway. I’d rather know what has you so thoughtful. There’s barely been a moment that you’ve been here mentally. Your eyes say you are very far away. Someone you are missing in California?” he asked, pouring wine for her.
“No. Something I might be missing if I don’t take the opportunity.”
“If you take the opportunity and it is not to your liking, you can always come back,” he said, pouring his own and hanging the pitcher on a short, stocky end of a cut off branch.
“I suppose. I was told I would eventually get bored of it all here. I am bored with a lot of things. I look around and don’t see any point to anything. I don’t see any direction for my life. I’m not interested enough to pursue anything.”
“No marriage for you, then?” he teased.
“When have I ever been a good Romany girl?” she smirked back. “I was told not to come back to church. They gave me my diploma four months early, rather than suspend me, just to get me out of the school. Let’s not even discuss sex before marriage and being a virgin. I only get paid ten grand an hour at this point.”
Radames nearly choked on his wine. “If you’re making that much for that little work, I will not say a thing against it,” he laughed. “You’re earning more than any of us ever hope to. Where is this new job of yours? Europe?”
“A very long way away among people not our own,” she chose to reply, holding her cup out for a refill. “I must admit that has its draw.”
“What is keeping you from going?” he asked.
She really had to think about it. She wasn’t tied to a relationship, wasn’t tied to her job. Wasn’t tied by anything.
“Me,” she had to say. “My own reluctance. I’m in no hurry to go.”
“If you had a sister and your sister came to you and said they had this terrific opportunity exactly like yours, what would you tell her?”
“To go and never look back and tell me all about it when next she visits.”
“So here is your uncle telling you to go and never look back and I look forward to hearing all your stories of your adventures when you come to visit. The others are almost ready to leave. We should see them off.”
Once the family had left, she was again alone with Gramma Addie.
“Will you wait for the first of the year before you go?”
“Do you think it’s the right thing? For me to go?” Tyler asked in return, taking tea cups to the sink.
One slipped from the saucer and crashed into the sink.
“Shit! I’m sorry!” she blurted, putting the saucer into the sink.
“It’s only a cup, child. Don’t fuss.”
In her distress, holding the intact cup and saucer and desperately wishing she’d not been so clumsy, another appeared in her other hand. A perfect copy. She and Gramma Addie both blinked and stared at it.
“I think it is not my decision to make,” Gramma said in her most gentle of tones, picking up the broken cup to place as was on a shelf in the cupboard.
She placed the new copy beside it.
“I think you should go where your gut and your head agree,” Gramma reopened the discussion in the sitting room.
“Well, they don’t agree. Neither one of them is certain enough to decide.”
“What does your heart say?” Gramma asked.
“My heart says we are free to do as we please, but that’s not helpful.”
“The heart may not always be helpful, but it is right. What would please you best at this moment?”
“I don’t know, Gramma. Everything around me is such a fog that I don’t see anything clearly. I don’t feel anything clearly.”
&
nbsp; “Then I will tell you what I see. I see that you are going nowhere sitting here with me eating rhubarb pie. You will not be going anywhere until you get up from that chair. Go home and begin to prepare as though you will be leaving. There are many things to take care of, yes? Rent to be paid, gas and electric to see too. Mail to be held? These things take time to put into order. Perhaps other things will become clear while you are taking care of the petty details.”
“That’s a good idea, Gramma.”
“I do have those now and then. Go pack.”
She did, needing only a few minutes. A hug maybe a little too strong between grandmother and granddaughter, both knowing where Tyler was going but that information having not been shared.
“We’ll all still be here when you get back, child. Don’t worry about us.”
Tyler smiled, her mind lighter for having Gramma’s permission. She went to her packed belongings and teleported to California, to her apartment. She called Thomas.
“I’m going away for a while. Some months, but I’m not sure. Do I need to put all my stuff into storage or should I pay rent for the time I’ll be gone, since I won’t be at your beck and call?”
Silence while he absorbed what she said.
“That’s some opening line, love.”
She let it hang there and waited for his answer.
“No, you don’t have to do anything. Leave it be until you get back. I won’t move anyone else into it. It’s your apartment. If you trust me enough and will come sign a document, I can be given power of attorney and take care of any of your business matters that come up. That way I don’t have to bother you over trivial decisions.”
“Should I have the post office hold my mail?” she asked.
“No. The building manager will collect it for you a few times a week. I’ll have a maid service come in twice a month to dust and the manager will put the mail on your kitchen table at that time. He’ll bring me the bills. When will you be here to sign the document?”
“Give me an hour.”
In and out to sign the paper. No sex. No intimacy. No long goodbye. She left as quickly as she arrived, and took her checks and anything else of value to her safe deposit box.
Whatever day this was, whatever time it was, she’d lost track. She concentrated hard and teleported up to the space station to arrive in Julian’s office. It was dark, just a small light on the wall providing illumination.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“The time is two in the morning, Sistarian Proper,” said the not quite male, not quite female computerized voice.
“Julian said I will have a room. Is one already made available for me?”
“Voice recognition complete. Tyler Rose Marie Brooks, Earth Telepath. Yes, a room is made ready for you. Your personal AI assistant will now join you.”
A beep and the voice changed. “Follow the blue arrows on the wall when you exit this room. What would you like to call me?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, staying put for the moment.
“You may give me any name you wish, Tyler; so that when you speak it, I will know that you are giving me an instruction or asking a question.”
“Nimrod,” she said. “I will call you Nimrod.”
“Thank you, Tyler. I am Nimrod. I am ready to assist you in finding your way around the station; learning how station features operate; and answering questions you may have about policy, people or places.”
“Terrific.”
“If you will follow the blue arrows, I will escort you to your room.”
Out the sliding door, arrows were pointing a flashing line to the nearest elevator. Into the gray box and the voice told her what level she was going to. Off the elevator seconds later on the 33rd Level, she followed the arrows straight forward and to the left two corridors up. Number 68 had a blue spot the size of her fist flashing steadily. 3368
Simple one room efficiency, but that was all she needed anyway. No windows, of course, since they were deep inside a space station. The bed was on the far side of the room, bathroom taking up a third of the fifteen foot wide space and creating a partially recessed nook for the bed. To her right at the door was a small kitchen area. Small two-seat table, tiny bit of counter in the corner with a food transporter in one wall. Food items were made in restaurants and teleported to the residence when they were ready, according to the instruction sheet on the door of the machine. Dish washing device in the other. There was also a small refrigerator about three feet tall with an ice dispenser and a two spot pad that looked like a stove.
“Nimrod, what is this?” she said of an empty box inside the wall.
“Tyler, that is a trash removal device,” replied the computer assistant.
“How’s this work?” she asked of the stove.
“The heating elements react with the pans provided in the cupboard,” said that same androgynous voice. “Place the pan on the surface. Speak the desired heat setting in increments of five from five to one hundred. When you remove the pan, the element turns off in ten seconds.”
“Good to know,” she said, turning to the bed area.
The thing offended her. Not that it was ugly. It wasn’t. It was as serviceable as any motel room bed and just as disgusting. She could imagine how many alien species had lain on that bed doing who knew what on it. The thought gave her a disgusted shudder. With a thought, she teleported the entire thing into the corridor outside her room. Thinking hard, she brought her own bed to her, complete with blankets and pillows. In place with a few nudges, she went to the sofa with the same heebiejeebie ick factor. Into the corridor it went and her own brought to the spot. She didn’t care so much about the companion chair. Likely she’d never sit in it anyway.
“Nimrod, what do I need to know about this place?” she asked aloud. “Do you have floor schematics for where everything is on the station?”
Schematics appeared on the blank wall opposite the sofa. Smoking a bit from her pipe, she studied what was where for a good half hour before her door chimed.
“Who is there?”
“Station Security,” Nimrod replied.
Pipe closed and on the table, she exhaled and went to the door. Two men in a uniform and third figure that was humanoid but…feline? One in uniform was staring at the things in the corridor, the other in her doorway scowling.
“What?” she said to the uniform in front of her.
“Are you—“
“Yes, that is she,” the feline replied. “Go on about your business.”
“These things cannot be in the corridor,” the security dude said.
“So take them away. Burn them. I don’t care,” she replied.
“Madam—“
“You heard her. Send for some men and haul them away.”
The uniform turned around to look at him, and kept on turning as the feline humanoid made a circle to put himself between the security team and her.
“Congressman Shestna, I must perform my—“
“We knew she would eventually be coming. Now she is here. She didn’t like the bed or the sofa a thousand people have had sex on and she obviously does not like this fuss. Leave her be.”
“She did not come through proper procedures.”
“By the Norav, you try my patience, Captain. Get you gone!”
Said with enough of an animal snarl that the Captain stopped and scowled, and turned on the spot to walk away.
“They will not be back,” he smiled, facing her once more.
“Uhhh, thank you?”
“My name is Shestna. I am the Congressman from Voran III. Julian has asked me to have a care for your person when you first come aboard and escort you anywhere you want to go until you learn your way around. May I step inside?”
She stepped back to allow him in the door. “I was just studying the station schematics. Nimrod, screens off.”
“Screens off, Tyler.”
“You named your intelligent assistant Nimrod? Doesn’t that mean idiot?” Sh
estna asked.
“Nimrod was—“
“Yes, Tyler?” the computer asked.
“I wasn’t talking to you. He was the great grandson of Noah, the man Christian mythology says built the ark. He was the King of Shinar and purportedly the leader of the people who built the Tower of Babel. I happen to like the name. It’s been very helpful this evening, showing me where things are on the maps.”
“Outlines on a wall,” Shestna smiled, already seeing she was so much more than Julian could have ever expressed. “Lifeless and boring. Come, we shall go to the market level. It never closes.”
How could she refuse? Unpacking (if she unpacked) could wait.
“How do I lock my door?” she asked in the corridor.
“It locks automatically and you open it with your voice or handprint. That is why security was alerted. You teleported directly into it.”
“I did not. I teleported into Julian’s office.”
“That’s even worse.”
“I forgot that’s frowned on,” she said as they walked toward the central corridor.
“It makes those who cannot teleport nervous to know there is someone that much more powerful around them. A person who can teleport can appear anywhere and assassinate or kidnap without a trace.”
“So I have heard. I have no such intentions.”
“Of course not.”
He swiped his card and one of the lifts opened in a matter of seconds.
“Level Thirty,” he said.
Doors closed, they were there in five seconds. Doors opened to a not quite bustling open market with trees and plants dotting the ends of rows of stores and stalls. He offered his arm to walk with her. Placing her hand atop his forearm, she found it velvety like a Sphinx cat’s skin.
Most shops in the market were stalls like at a county fair. The aroma was rather equal to a county fair as well. Spices and cooking meat and something sweet.